The Whole Story

Quilts tell stories. Materials, techniques, and designs illuminate trade routes, technology, regional traits, and connections between quiltmakers. A quilt speaks for a silent and anonymous maker from the past.

The quilting stitches themselves are an important part of a quilt’s story, yet that story may be hidden because stitching patterns are not easily “read.” For whole cloth quilts, the stitches whisper the story, as the subtle, tone-on-tone stitching veils the intricate patterns.

Using an innovative method for capturing patterns with a computer-assisted design program (CAD), guest curator Linda Baumgarten of Colonial Williamsburg carefully traced detailed photographs, taken by Jennifer Graham of the IQM staff, using a computer and stylus. The resulting digital line drawings reveal the intricate hidden quilting patterns.

The digital drawings inspired fascinating observations of quilts in the IQM collection. New England and Philadelphia quiltmakers used two-handled vases in very different ways. Early American wool whole cloth quilts feature feather plumes echoed on quilts created more than 100 years later. Amish and Welsh quilts were pieced in similar ways, but quilted very differently. These quilting designs, only now being explored, add an exciting new dimension to the voice of quilts and quiltmakers

The Quilting Makes all the Difference

Quilts and Illustrations

American Whole Cloth Wool Quilts

Whole cloth wool quilts are iconic products of Colonial America. Made with brilliantly dyed hard-surface worsteds, (wool fabrics woven of compactly twisted yarn), and carded woolen battings, they added beauty and warmth to bedsteads in unheated rooms. Their designs typically feature bold scrolling flowers and leaves, sometimes growing from vases or baskets, bordered with feather plumes. The worsted textiles were often glazed, or polished to a shine under heat and pressure, prior to quilting. The polishing process was a commercial endeavor done by the textile manufacturer, involving folding the woven textile and pressing it, often causing permanent creases that are still visible in a finished quilt. Glazed worsteds were a perfect vehicle for large-scale quilting patterns. Although the textiles were too stiff for the tiny patterns sometimes seen in cotton quilts, the firm textiles puffed up nicely around the quilting stitches to enhance the design without the addition of any additional batting.

Animal-Motif Quilted Petticoats

This unusual quilt features distinctive animal and human figures combined with flowering sprigs, vines, and sailing ships. It is one of a significant regional group of textiles made in the middle of the eighteenth century in Connecticut and Rhode Island. Most of the surviving examples take the form of quilted petticoats, or skirts, intended to be visible under the open-fronts of women’s gowns. Details of the figural designs were stitched with spaced backstitches to create more accurate contours around the small-scale motifs. The designs may be the work of a teacher in a southeastern Connecticut boarding school who drew designs for her students to quilt. Many of the motifs came from published books and drawings, some harking back to the seventeenth century, suggesting that the as-yet unknown teacher had access to pattern books or was trained in Britain late in the seventeenth century.
IQM’s bedcover is shown with a reproduction wool petticoat worked by Colonial Williamsburg volunteer quilters under the direction of Beth Gerhold in the same pattern as the quilt borders to illustrate how the original petticoat might have looked before it was taken apart. An antique red wool cloak on loan from the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation shows the kind of garment that was cut apart to make the center of the bedcover.

Philadelphia Quaker Silk Quilt

A large group of silk quilts and petticoats with two-handled vase designs can be traced to the work of Philadelphia Quakers between 1750 and about 1770. The group appears to be the design work of a local artist or teacher, tentatively identified as schoolteacher Ann Marsh, and quilted by her students and adult members of the closely knit Quaker community. The bed quilts and petticoats surviving in this group feature two-handled vases sitting atop undulating mounds, sunflowers, scalloped edges, and fanlike crosses at the center of each quilt.

Amish Diamond on Point Quilts

Amish quilters from Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, are known for their bold, graphic piecing, especially the pattern known as Center Diamond. Although the bedcovers appear spare at first glance, the quilting stitches belie the abstract nature of the piecing, with their detailed—even fussy—patterns of undulating feather plumes and realistic flower or fruit clusters. Comparing the stitching on three very similar quilts illuminates the conservative nature of Amish design, especially the use of undulating feather plumes that echo those on American worsted quilts half a century earlier.

Welsh Quilts

Welsh quilts have long been recognized as using many of the same pieced patterns as American Amish quilts. Research by British scholar Dorothy Osler offers convincing proof that Welsh immigrants lived in close proximity to several Pennsylvania Amish communities, and that Amish quilters probably copied patterns such as the Center Diamond and Bars. Comparing the quilting stitches, however, reveals that Amish women did not choose to copy Welsh quilting with its coiling spirals and leaves, probably carryovers from Celtic imagery.

Works in the Exhibition

Whole Cloth Quilt
Maker unknown
Probably made in New England or New York, circa 1790
IQM 2006.056.0016, Gift of Clyde E. and Joan B. Shorey

Surrounded by wavelike symmetrical plumes around the edges, this scrolling floral design appears to grow from a large seed pod in the bottom center. The worsted twill face fabric, probably called shalloon in the eighteenth century, retains permanent creases from being folded under the press for glazing. The woolen batting was dyed blue before quilting to minimize the appearance of “bearding” that occurs when white batting works its way through dark textiles over time.

Whole Cloth Quilt
Maker unknown
Made in New England, 1760-1800
IQM 2006.005.0002, Purchase made possible through James Foundation Acquisition Fund

The central flowering plant grows from a basket positioned just below the center of the quilt. When placed on a bed, the flowering basket would cover the top of the bed, while the scrolling plants and plumed edging would hang over the sides and bottom. The maker quilted closely spaced scallops at the top where the quilt would receive the most abrasion. Bed pillows likely covered the scallops when the quilt was in use. The plain-woven pink worsted was probably called tammy in the eighteenth century. The batting and backing are wool.

Whole Cloth Quilt
Maker unknown
Probably made in Vermont, 1760-1800
IQM 1997.007.0416, Gift of Ardis and Robert James

Three two-handled vases line up at the center of this quilt. Standing on the bottom border, the first vase seems too small for the robust scrolling plumes that grow in either direction from the narrow neck of the vase. Although undulating plumes of this type are sometimes called feather plumes, in this case they resemble organic flowering vines. A serpentine vine encloses the center vase, forming a medallion. A third vase near the top is not clearly defined, but only suggested by a lobed figure with two symmetrical vines growing from the top; most of this motif was probably hidden by bed pillows. The glazed plain-woven worsted, probably called tammy, retains permanent creases from the heat and pressure in the glazing press. Backing and batting are wool.

Bed Cover with Petticoat Borders
Maker unknown
Probably made in Connecticut, early 19th century from circa 1750 clothing
IQM 2005.016.0001, Purchase made possible through James Foundation Acquisition Fund

This fascinating bed cover is constructed of recycled clothing. The center area was made from a wool broadcloth hooded cloak, cut apart and pieced back together to make a flat rectangle, then embroidered with green trees. In the eighteenth century, broadcloth was by definition a wool textile woven on a wide loom, then fulled (deliberately shrunk) to make it warm, dense, and resistant to raveling.

The clever maker of the bedcover continued her recycling project by taking apart an old quilted petticoat and adding it to the sides and foot of the center rectangle. The petticoat would have gone out of style when new-fashioned neoclassical dresses with slim skirts came into vogue about 1800.

The petticoat is embellished with a series of motifs in the border: insects, fish, a variety of birds, a man in a cocked hat riding on horseback, a lion, an owl, a sailing ship, an antlered deer with the initials PG worked into his body, a mermaid with her comb and mirror, and a turtle. The border is worked with backstitches, while the less intricate grid is worked with running stitches. The motifs and stitching style are related to other petticoats with Connecticut and Rhode Island histories, forming a distinctive regional grouping.

Whole Cloth Quilt
Probably made by a member of the Skyrin or Drinker family; design attributed to Ann Marsh
Made in Philadelphia, 1750-1770
IQM 2006.056.0017, Gift of Clyde E. and Joan B. Shorey

This exquisite quilt has all the hallmarks of mid-eighteenth century Quaker quilting: quality materials, exceptional quilting, and a distinctive bordered design with variations of two-handled vases. Very similar in design to a number of bed quilts and petticoats in other museum collections, the design is certainly the work of a professional designer who drew quilts for women to quilt at home. This design group is attributed to Ann Marsh, a Philadelphia Quaker schoolteacher.

The quilt has a history associated with the Skyrin family of Philadelphia. It was attributed to Ann “Nancy” Drinker Skyrin (Mrs. John Skyrin), who was born in Philadelphia in 1764, moved west with her husband sometime after 1820, and died in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1830. She was the daughter of Elizabeth (Mrs. Henry) Drinker, who kept a diary that has since been published. However, because the quilt is almost identical to other quilts made before Ann reached quilting age, the quilt was more likely made by another member of the Skyrin or Drinker families.

Center Diamond Quilt
Maker unknown, initialed A B
Probably made in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, Dated 1914
IQM 2006.056.0001, Gift of Clyde E. and Joan B. Shorey

Made in a society in which self-effacing humility was prized, this quilt is unusual for the inclusion of a quilted date and initials, making it an important benchmark of Amish quilting. Amish quilters were conservative in their choice of designs and repeated patterns for decades. This twentieth-century Amish quilt uses undulating plumes similar to those in the much earlier red wool quilt exhibited nearby.

Center Diamond Quilt
Possibly made by Sarah Smoker
Probably made in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, 1915-1935
IQM 1997.007.0232, Gift of Ardis and Robert James

This classic Center Diamond quilt has a double center medallion and wide borders with traditional undulating feather plumes. The narrow inner border features four-part flowerlike figures known as fylfots, traditional motifs in the Pennsylvania German community. The inner quadrants include roses and tulips that can be compared to those on Mattie King Stoltzfus’s quilt.

Although the dealer who purchased the quilt at a York, Pennsylvania quilt show identified the quilter as Sarah Smoker, it is not known which of several Lancaster County women named Sarah Smoker made the quilt.

Center Diamond Quilt
Possibly made by Mattie King Stoltzfus (Mrs. Abram Stoltzfus) and Lydia Stoltzfus (later Mrs. David Renno)
Probably made in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, circa 1941
IQM 1997.007.0220, Gift of Ardis and Robert James

According to documentation at the time it was acquired, the quilt was made by Mattie King Stoltzfus in preparation for her daughter Lydia’s wedding, which occurred in November of 1941. The daughter related that she came up with the idea of the compote motif in the corners and that she quilted those areas herself. Lydia did not design the motif, however. It came from a pattern that had been used in the Amish community since at least 1915, when Rachel Smoker embroidered a red on white hand towel with the same design, probably from a published pattern (see illustration). Amish quilters were not isolated from commercial design sources, and they shared patterns with each other over many years.

Diamond on Point in Squares Quilt
Maker unknown
Made in Wales, 1890-1910
IQM 2005.058.0002, Purchase made possible through James Foundation Acquisition Fund

The arrangement of this quilt, featuring a diamond within concentric squares, is related to pieced quilts made by the Pennsylvania Amish, yet the quilting pattern is very different. Using a stab method through very thick woolen batting, the Welsh quiltmaker selected motifs that included spirals and leaves. Notice that the quilting motifs frequently extend beyond the confines of the pieced shapes, unlike the more contained Amish quilting.

Whole Cloth Quilt
Maker unknown
Probably Wales, 1890-1920
IQM 2006.007.0001, Purchase made possible through James Foundation Acquisition Fund

This heavy wool quilt might be confused with an American whole cloth example until the stitching is examined in detail. The coiling spirals and large-scale four-petal flowers enclosed within squares and diamonds are especially characteristic of Welsh examples. A central diamond is here rendered in quilting stitches, unlike the pieced diamonds on the Welsh and Amish quilts exhibited nearby.

Works in the Exhibition

Gallery Photos

This exhibition was made possible through funding from the Nebraska Arts Council and the Nebraska Cultural Endowment. The Nebraska Arts Council, a state agency, has supported this exhibition through its matching grants program funded by the Nebraska Legislature and the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Nebraska Cultural Endowment. Visit www.artscouncil.nebraska.gov for more information.

Past

Event Date

Friday, October 4, 2013 to Sunday, June 1, 2014